The first day of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2013) saw the company announce a number of new products.
After introducing an ‘artificial intelligence’ racing game called Anki Drive that lets iOS devices control real model cars via Bluetooth, the session moved on to new Mac and MacBook computers and a cloud-based version of the iWork document suite.
The forthcoming iOS version 7 was revealed; this is now available in beta form for developers and will be provided as a free upgrade for consumers from the autumn. It has a new user interface with a much ‘cleaner’ appearance and offers smarter multitasking, with updates prioritised depending on usage and network conditions. There’s also a peer-to-peer WiFi-based sharing service called AirDrop and a music app that includes the new iTunes Radio streaming service.
iTunes Radio - also due this autumn - is free and ad-supported with more than 200 stations; some are curated by Apple while others are created by genre. Consumers with the iTunes Match subscription service can hear iTunes Radio without advertising.
Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, said “iOS 7 is the most significant iOS update since the original iPhone. To create it, we brought together a team with a broad range of expertise from design to engineering. With what we’ve been able to achieve together, we see iOS 7 as an exciting new beginning.”
[Apple WWDC keynote presentation]